Introducing the Baume & Mercier Clifton Perpetual Calendar Watch

In a bold move, Baume & Mercier unveils the highly complicated Clifton Perpetual Calendar. As is the brand’s style, each year it unveils a very special Swiss made complication in the Clifton collection. Last year we witnessed the unveiling of the stunning five-minute repeater pocket watch, and the year before that, a tourbillon. Now, the 186-year-old brand turns its attention to astronomy and to one of the most useful functions for today’s busy lifestyles: the perpetual calendar.

The Clifton Perpetual Calendar watch, designed and developed in house at the brand’s Geneva headquarters (and completed in its workshops in Les Brenets in the Jura Mountains), is crafted in 18-karat rose gold (5N) and deftly blends aesthetics and precision. The watch tracks hours, minutes and seconds, as well as day and date (taking in to account months with 31,30 and 28 days), month, the phases of the moon and the leap year.

The movement is a Vaucher base with Dubois Depraz module for the perpetual calendar.

An automatic Vaucher 5401 base powers the timepiece — with a Dubois Depraz 5100 module added to keep track of the celestial mechanics. The calendar is endowed with a mechanical memory for 1461 days (four years). It beats at 21,600 vibrations per hour and offers 48 hours of power reserve. The 42mm watch features a sapphire caseback for viewing of the exceptionally finished movement, with Côtes de Genève on the bridges and stippling on the bottom plate. The watch is further equipped with a micro-rotor to thin down the caliber and enable a thin case of 4.2mm.

The stunning, slightly domed dial is silver opaline and features stamped indexes in 18-karat 5N rose gold, as well as blued hands for the watch calendar functions. Water resistant to 5 ATM, the watch is finished with a black alligator strap. The watch joins the Clifton line up as a production piece, but will be limited in the fact that it takes time to produce each one.

Baume & Mercier will be presenting this exceptional Clifton Perpetual Calendar watch as apart of the brand’s SIHH 2017 collection, and it is expected to be in stores in late spring of 2017. Of course, Baume & Mercier will also offer a host of continually affordable highly crafted timepieces in January at the Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie in Geneva. We will keep you posted about those new models.